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LOI Date:

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Description:

Grants to USA, Canada, and International researchers at academic, nonprofit research institutions and industry organizations to create personalized brain mapping to improve epilepsy care. A letter of Intent is required prior to submission of a full application. Eligible proposals will test novel, unconventional hypotheses or pursue major methodological or technical challenges in network modeling for epilepsy.

The Epilepsy Foundation is interested in funding innovative multi-scale approaches to brain mapping and therefore, encourages proposal submissions that can begin to correlate standard measures of macro-network activity (i.e. EEG and/or fMRI) with microphysiological mechanisms (such as oxygen, microdialysis of extracellular fluids, local field potentials, etc).

The ultimate end-goal is to create a user-friendly data visualization tool for seizure propagation personalized to the individual’s brain network. This request for proposals will be used to fund the preliminary exploratory work needed to develop a prototype visualization tool. The following will be prioritized:
- Investigators who propose employing new technologies and new analytical methods on existing data sets already collected.

The objective of this RFP is to support pilot studies that encourage new analytical approaches and tools to model seizure propagation in a brain network. These are seed funding grants for exploratory research that has the potential to transform our understanding of how seizures can propagate throughout the network. The Foundation encourages applications to take multi-scale approaches that could correlate the current standard measures of macro-network mapping such as EEG and fMRI with micro-network physiological mechanism. This is not an effort to support the collection and curation of large data sets. Therefore, those with data sets already available for analysis will be given preference.

Team Science Award

This award is designed to foster collaborative research amongst researchers with complementary expertise and capabilities, who will work together to advance our understanding on seizure propagation in personalized brain network models. Ei2 expects to provide up to $200,000 per multidisciplinary teams of two or more established Principal Investigators (PIs). Our goal is to support interdisciplinary approaches involving clinicians, neuroscientists, computer scientists, and mathematicians to facilitate different perspectives in these early days of network modeling.

GrantWatch ID#:

GrantWatch ID#: 185622

Estimated Size of Grant:

Up to $200,000

Term of Contract:

February 2020: Projects commence

For all proposals, the level and duration of funding may be adjusted by the Epilepsy Foundation as appropriate for the scope of the proposal and the funds available. Multi‐year support is not automatic for any Epilepsy Foundation award and is conditioned on submission of complete and accurate progress reports and demonstrated progress on the funded proposal.

Eligibility:

Additional Eligibility Criteria:

PIs must hold a full‐time faculty or industry appointment at the level of Assistant Professor (or equivalent) or above at an academic, non‐profit research institution, or industry organization whose primary mission includes medical research within or outside the United States. PIs must be able to show clear evidence of an independent research program. Fellows or those in other training or research support positions are encouraged to be part of the team. Investigators need not be specifically trained in the field of epilepsy or have any documented experience with epilepsy research. However, researchers who are new to epilepsy will need to ensure that there is an epilepsy research expert on their team during the formative stages of the research plan. If there are any questions about eligibility, please contact Ei2 before submitting an application. Applications from PIs who do not meet the eligibility criteria will not be reviewed.

Teams may consist of investigators from the same institution, different institutions, may be public/private partnerships, and may be international. A designated Administrative PI is responsible for administrative leadership in ensuring all documents are submitted (see Application instructions). All PIs on the team share authority for scientific leadership. A representative of Ei2 will also be part of the selected winning team.

Pre-Application Information:

Timeline:
- March 15, 2019: Submissions open
- July 26, 2019: Letters of Intent are due by 5:00 PM Eastern Time.
- August 5, 2019: Applicants are notified of their status.
- January 15, 2020: Full-length proposals are due by 5:00 PM Eastern Time
- January 6, 2020: Peer and organizational review
- January 20, 2020: Awardees notified (Epilepsy Foundation may adjust date without notice to applicants)
- February 2020: Projects commence

The Epilepsy Foundation will not provide more than 10% of the total award amount for indirect costs, overhead costs, or other similar institutional charges.

This award has a collaborative and multidisciplinary emphasis, involving meaningful collaboration between participants. Applications, therefore, must include a description of the nature of and rationale for the proposed collaboration, the specific role of all PIs, and synergistic opportunities.